Among the major US carriers, it’s sure felt like the ship has sailed on unlimited data. While Sprint continued to be a hold-out, Verizon and AT&T customers who once enjoyed unlimited data have seen that option replaced by tiered plans, and struggle to retain their grandfathered unlimited options. If anything, we expected the situation to become even more restrictive and a worse value as time went on. That’s why it’s so surprising to hear today’s news from T-Mobile, which is announcing the creation of a new unlimited data option.
In the past, T-Mobile has offered data tiers with so much “4G” data (HSPA+) before speeds would be throttled back. The new plan does away with that limitation. It also ends up cheaper than most of the older tiers, at just $30 a month on a Classic plan or $20 for a Value plan.
The only downside we can see is that you can’t use this new unlimited tier for sharing data over a mobile hotspot. There’s no mention if that might be possible for an additional fee.
The new plan will be available starting September 5. We wonder if T-Mobile will end up keeping this new offering once it finally gets LTE off the ground.
